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Chinese Opinion

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Sunday, April 15, 2007

 

EDITORIAL

 

Good signs from China

 

The success of any global system to reduce greenhouse gases depends

on many factors, but two are paramount. One is U.S. leadership. The

other is China's full participation. President George W. Bush still

refuses to lead. But there is mounting pressure for action from

cities, states and Congress, as well as the recent Supreme Court

decision that all but ordered the administration to begin regulating

greenhouse gases. And for the first time, there are some modestly

encouraging signs from China.

 

During a visit to Tokyo last week, China's Premier Wen Jiabao

announced that his country was prepared take part in negotiations on

a new agreement limiting global warming emissions, to replace the

Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. China is not subject to the

accord's binding emissions targets, but its commitment to talk raises

the first real hope that it may be open to the idea.

 

Japan and China also agreed to work together to reduce emissions.

Both sides have strong economic motives for doing so. Japan, already

one of the world's most energy-efficient countries, is having a hard

time further reducing its emissions as required under the Kyoto

agreement. It can earn credits to help meet its obligations by

investing in clean-energy projects in developing countries like

China, which in turn will help China's economy and give it access to

new technologies. China may be starting to understand that global

warming poses a real danger, especially to its food supply and

coastal cities.

 

Most outsiders agree that China, which produces 18 percent of the

world's carbon dioxide emissions, will never come to grips with the

problem until it imposes mandatory limits similar to those called for

by Kyoto. Nearly every industrialized nation except the United States

has accepted those limits. But mandatory caps on emissions from power

plants and other industrial sources would be strong and costly

medicine.

 

China is unlikely to swallow that medicine as long as the United

States doesn't do so as well, thus using America as a cover for

inaction just as Bush is using China's inaction to excuse his own.

Congress could help break that stalemate by approving mandatory

limits for the United States.

 

Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

 

 

posted to ClimateConcern 16/04/07

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